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SexyBlindfold posted:I've always wondered, is JC killing his brother a taboo subject in Spain or does it get brought up every one in a while? I never heard anyone bring it up. And anyway, anything that happened before 1980 might as well have never happened as far as consequences go - this applies to anyone associated with the old regime. Just look up the niños robados, to barely scratch the surface. That reminds me, JC's grandson shot his foot off or something so teen Spanish royalty doesn't have a good track record with guns, just sayin'. Xibanya fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Dec 15, 2014 |
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Dec 15, 2014 22:05
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Xibanya posted:I never heard anyone bring it up. And anyway, anything that happened before 1980 might as well have never happened as far as consequences go - this applies to anyone associated with the old regime. Just look up the niños robados, to barely scratch the surface. He was underage to have a gun permit, so there was also that. Also, that same grandson was the one who stabbed his cousin with a skewer, if I remember it correctly. Someone who is more up to date should post about el Pequeño Nicolás. He's a rascal who has been involved in a shitload of deals and knows pretty much everyone in politics. He's in trouble for impersonating a CNI (like the spanish CIA) person, sneaking into official events with fake IDs, taking money for fake deals (also some real ones, i think). There's footage from when he was like 15 or so where he's already close to Aguirre. Really funny if it weren't possibly true.
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Dec 16, 2014 14:45
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BlackTie posted:Someone who is more up to date should post about el Pequeño Nicolás. Luckily for you, I have one already written up.  "Your picture here" The bizarre story of "El pequeño Nicolás" (or Little Nicholas) circles around a chinless wonder who somehow took the backroom politics scene by storm and masterminded a complicated network of deceit amongst the political elite of Spain. Such a feat isn't that difficult because, for a sorry lot of thieves, Spanish politicos are pretty gullible, even more so than the people that vote them into power every election. Little Nicky started showing up in media with Spanish politicians in 2008, when he was 14 years old (click for video). Apparently, during a PP rally/holiday celebration in Madrid with some party bigwigs such as Esperanza Aguirre (see below) and Mariano Rajoy, the current President. In the video clip a news reporter, trying to get a question in edge-wise with Aguirre, is repeatedly denied by some peach-fuzzed kid in the crowd.  Flash forward to 2011, where he was spotted again with Mariano Rajoy, this time while Rajoy was voting for himself.  In 2014, he can be seen at the coronation of the new Spanish King Felipe VI, swearing loyalty to his new Bourbon overlord. A king's coronation is something that only the coolest of cool Spanish kids get to go to. He claims he was the plus one of someone actually invited to the event but no one has fessed up so far.  Here he is with Jose Maria Aznar (aka "Mr. Mustache"), former president of Spain who was great buddies with Dubya and brought Spain into the hellhole boondoggle known as Iraq and Afghanistan. Fun fact: 75% (or more now, new cases are popping up every day) of the government ministers under Aznar are currently under investigation for corruption, fraud, or general shenanigans.  Little Nicky with Ana Botella (aka "Annie Bottle"), wife of Aznar, current Mayor of Madrid, and of "relaxing cup of cafe con leche" notoriety (bad english proclick).  Nicky with Esperanza Aguirre (right, pink), PP mafia doña and all-around disagreeable person who earlier this year was chased around downtown Madrid by traffic cops after she parked illegally, refused to comply with the police, and side-swiped the cop's vehicle all before she scurried home and had her bodyguards deal with the police.  With Arturo Fernandez, current Commerce minister, who denied ever knowing Little Nicky before a picture of him taking a siesta on Little Nicky's couch surfaced. Also, Whatsapp conversations between the two have been released where they do business over "tomatoes" and how "green" or "ripe" they are. Take that as you will. So how did this fresh-faced youngster manage to spin such a tangled web of lies? From most accounts, he would claim that he worked for the CNI (Spanish Intelligence), that he worked on behalf of someone (usually hooking up politicians with businessmen, or vice versa), or that he knew "someone." Basically, from what I've been able to gather, he started out working for FAES (a Spanish think tank headed by Aznar), organizing youth wings of the PP for elections and other party events. It's difficult to know what exactly he was doing throughout this time because no one will admit knowing Little Nicky or working with him since his arrest in October. What IS known is that this kid got around in Spain. There are pictures of him with basically every PP head honcho, businessmen, celebrities etc. The Spanish government's official line is that this kid would just go up to these people and ask for selfies and said famous people would happily oblige without question the kid with no chin. This begs the question: was he taking selfies to flaunt his political peen on the internet via Facebook and Instagram, or was he making a digital paper trail in case he got pinched? At any rate, Little Nicky is back out in the wild after a judge let him out on bail without bond pending judicial review. He's already done several interviews and has threatened to blow the lid off of everything if he ends up in prison. This is already causing some in the political machine to worry, as next year is an election year and a tell-all book or series of scandalous interviews broadcast on Spanish TV would not go over well with the established system or the people too I suppose. And how is the common Spanish man taking this? Some think he's just another kid trying to worm his way into politics like every other politician (kissing rear end and taking selfies) and others think this kid is some sort of sociopath charlatan mastermind, cynically manipulating people and politics to get what he wanted, like living in a 5k Euro a month house for free. I'm leaning towards the latter, because it's more interesting and on par with the sorry mess that is Spanish politics. The latest thing I've heard is that that 5k Euro a month house was covered in hidden cameras and he has footage of all sorts of important people "doing business" at his house. It remains to be seen if this kid is bluffing or not, but it will be fascinating to see the kind of political fallout that such a bombshell would create, and who would be permanently tainted. Of course, the Spanish Internet has had a lot of fun with this kid, but this one is my favorite:  My name is Fran Nicolas, CNI agent. Arturo Fernandez (see above) is my uncle. I can hold my breath for 10 minutes. Tell me more about your black cards. Ok, see you later.
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Dec 16, 2014 19:50
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New polls in Portugal as we get closer and closer to election campaigns. Despite being helmed by the Portuguese Obama, Antonio Costa, PS still hasn't reached the high numbers from May(over 38%) when the non-citizen Seguro was secretary general. This lead over the PSD-CDS coalition still doesn't give him absolute majority, which means that PS is once again hitting the streets and remembering folk of the "Centre Bloc" in 76(a PS-PSD coalition) and how good it was. It showed real vision and political guts you know. But this poll also shows other good news to PS. Due to the recent events surronding the arrest of former prime minister and Socialist Saint José Socrates over corruption and fraud charges, many believed that it would rock the party, but as it turns out nobody gives a gently caress. Most portuguese think he deserves to be in jail, but it doesn't reflect poorly on the party. The rest is typical, coalition parties going down, Communist Party lounging in 10%. More relevant this marks the political debut of PDR(populist party headed by morning tv super lawyer/judge Marinho Pinto) as they entered the race with 2.2%, meanwhile LIVRE(the left to unite the left) is still (very) slowly growing. Both together already surpass the sinking BE, which at this rate stands a serious chance of simply disappearing. They fixed their leadership, but secretary general Catarina Martins is only slighly more popular than the Prime Minister, which means nobody actually likes her. Also PDR logo is some of the laziest poo poo ever, and that says a lot. http://expresso.sapo.pt/sondagem-ps-sobe-apesar-de-socrates=f902376
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Dec 17, 2014 17:27
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Electronico6 posted:But this poll also shows other good news to PS. Due to the recent events surronding the arrest of former prime minister and Socialist Saint José Socrates over corruption and fraud charges, many believed that it would rock the party, but as it turns out nobody gives a gently caress. Most portuguese think he deserves to be in jail, but it doesn't reflect poorly on the party. Is that typical in Portuguese politics? I mean, is the behavior of individual politicians seen separately from their political party as a whole? I know in the States it's like that more or less, and when an American politico fucks up they will quickly resign and divorce themselves from the party to minimize fallout. Here in Spain the main parties want the public to view them that way as well, but more and more Spaniards are wising up to the endemic corruption in the mainstream (and not so mainstream) Spanish political parties. I've been lurking in D&D for a long time, and I know that backing your poo poo up with sources is the golden rule around here. However, come Jan. 1st, I may not be able to anymore if the source is a Spanish newspaper. As some of you may know, Google has recently shuttered its News service in Spain because of a new intellectual property law. Basically, any time someone links to or references an article, a quote, or even a headline from a Spanish newspaper, the person making the reference will now owe that newspaper a hefty royalty (of upwards to 600,000 Euros). This goes for news aggregator sites (such as Meneame, Reddit, etc.), blogs, and even social media if the new law is interpreted in a certain way. Basically, this is another law that the PP railroaded through Congress. I'm not sure if it's yet another supervillain move to control public opinion or if it's the Spanish newspapers putting pressure on their politician buddies because they refuse to understand how the Internet works. quote:Now that Google has decided to close up shop rather than pay up, newspapers have backtracked. AEDE, the Association of Spanish Newspaper Editors—the same group that lobbied for the “Google tax”—has asked Spanish and European authorities to intervene to keep Google News from closing. AEDE claims the closing of Google News will have a negative impact on Spanish citizens and businesses (i.e., advertising dollars from page views) and it wants more time to negotiate. For now, though, the Spanish government plans to continue rolling out the law. Their advice if you miss your aggregators? Use a search engine. The rest of the article can be read here. It seems to me that Spanish newspapers have been lagging behind in entering the 21st century and are scared of losing advertising revenue from traditional sources. I guess they are trying to stay relevant but in the most obtuse and draconian way possible, and all of this is possible because the Spanish political and media establishments are so tightly intertwined that reactionary policies like this are the only way for them to survive 2015, the next election year.
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Dec 18, 2014 11:34
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I want to slap the poo poo out of anyone who still votes PSD CDS after these four years. I know people who vote for them who work six days a week. They accept to work without contract so they can at least have some euros instead of nothing. These animals are living in poo poo and yet are still voting for the people who tell them they're still living above their means. Sometimes i just want to open people's skulls and look at what's going on in their brains. Bitching about heathcare being expensive as hell, bitching about public transports being expensive and being filled to the brim because they're running bare minimum for years, bitching about taxes, bitching about earning squat, bitching about bosses who effectively laugh at their faces because as entrepeneurs they're the only ones with rights in this shithole. And then they go and vote for more  DXH posted:I've been lurking in D&D for a long time, and I know that backing your poo poo up with sources is the golden rule around here. However, come Jan. 1st, I may not be able to anymore if the source is a Spanish newspaper. As some of you may know, Google has recently shuttered its News service in Spain because of a new intellectual property law. Basically, any time someone links to or references an article, a quote, or even a headline from a Spanish newspaper, the person making the reference will now owe that newspaper a hefty royalty (of upwards to 600,000 Euros). This goes for news aggregator sites (such as Meneame, Reddit, etc.), blogs, and even social media if the new law is interpreted in a certain way.
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Dec 18, 2014 11:57
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DXH posted:Is that typical in Portuguese politics? I mean, is the behavior of individual politicians seen separately from their political party as a whole? I know in the States it's like that more or less, and when an American politico fucks up they will quickly resign and divorce themselves from the party to minimize fallout. Here in Spain the main parties want the public to view them that way as well, but more and more Spaniards are wising up to the endemic corruption in the mainstream (and not so mainstream) Spanish political parties. Portuguese tend to vote for the Party and not the man/woman. Compare it to UK politics, where a strong personality like Thatcher or Blair can take the Party pretty far, but at the end of the day you can still go with the village idiot as PM candidate and win elections, as most folk vote Conservative Party not David Cameron. I find that US politics to be far more personality driven, you know the OBAMA/BIDEN style of posters and campaigns, people going HILLARY 2016 and all that. Here it's always about the Party first and that's what you'll see in posters and during campaigns: "Vota Partido Socialista", "Politica Patriotica e de Esquerda vota Partido Comunista Portugues". Yet a good secretary general, or great individual militants can make the difference when poo poo hits the fan. The situation with Socrates could've gone very wrong for PS, if the secretary general wasn't as savvy and experienced as Antonio Costa. Costa handled the whole mess perfectly, he told all the Socialist rank and file to pipe down and be quiet about Socrates just few hours after his arrest, and made the PS message about the whole case to be one of "Let justice take its course" and "That's Socrates problem", he divorced the party from Socrates. Which really is an incredible feat, as weeks before the arrest PS was proclaiming Socrates as a great man stabbed in the back by the The usual method of a Party handling bad stuff or rogue members is simply grab whoever hosed things up, take them to the back of the shed and put them out of their misery quietly. People simply vanish from politics in Portugal if they mess up, and you'll never hear from them again or what they did. Antonio José Seguro was the leader of PS for 3 years straight but now doesn't even feature in the Christmas dinner list of his party. The Party survives untouched or damaged, the men and women not so much. Exceptions exist though. CDS lives and dies on the popularity of its secretary general Paulo Portas. The man is a complete piece of poo poo, but he is a brillian politician who has managed to stay alive and remain popular in politics for almost 20 years.(If you check that link you'll see that he is the second most popular leader in Portugal, behind Antonio Costa) However he has stayed so long in front of CDS that it has essentially become a one man party. I find people who vote for Portas, but rarely for CDS. This is an issue that the members of CDS seem to be aware, as they have been trying to get rid of Portas for years now, but they can't find anybody who is at least a third as good as Portas, so when he leaves he will drag the party with him. There's also the Marinho Pinto effect. Marinho Pinto was a big shot lawyer/judge that in the last decade or so, became a regular fixture in tv morning shows and commentator spots as the guy that tells "things as he sees it". He ran for the Euro-parliament in this last election with MPT, a party only a handful of people knew it existed. He got elected and even managed to get two seats in Strasbourg.(He already quit by the way) This was a shock for everybody, as I mentioned in another post, Portuguese media doesn't talk about parliament outsiders. This result comes from Marinho Pinto being a sort of TV celebrity. He left MPT, and formed his own party, PDR which you can see is already showing up in the polls. Nobody really knows what exactly this party is, but they know the man and he is going to ride that wave to get himself elected into parliament. It's also important to note that what is happening with José Socrates is completley unique to Democratic Portuguese history. Not only is the first time a Prime Minister has been arrested over corruption charges, but it also happened to the man everybody thought to be untouchable. But that's a story for another post. Electronico6 fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Dec 18, 2014 |
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Dec 18, 2014 14:37
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Electronico6 posted:
I've been away from Portugal for a while now, and don't follow the news as much I used to so I'm probably misinformed, but wasn't the timing of his arrest somewhat strange? Like the week before some minister resigned because he's somehow associated with people indicted in a gold visas court case? Note that I'm not saying there's some tinfoil hat conspiracy in place to charge Socrates in order to deflect attention from the government or whatever, but it's kinda perplexing to see all this stuff (and more, the BES downfall comes to mind) happening in a short span of time. Maybe everything is rotting simultaneously.
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Dec 18, 2014 15:56
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Zsa Zsa Gabor posted:I've been away from Portugal for a while now, and don't follow the news as much I used to so I'm probably misinformed, but wasn't the timing of his arrest somewhat strange? Like the week before some minister resigned because he's somehow associated with people indicted in a gold visas court case? Passos Coelho probably had a heart attack when he saw Socrates being arrested in an airport LIVE ON TELEVISION(!!!!), as he is involved in many similar schemes as his predecessor(though on a smaller scale). Look, no major government party is ever going put another through hell, because it sets horrible precedents, and if you start accusing the other party of being corrupt you invite people to check your own house too. PS, PSD, and CDS all bury their skeletons in the same graveyard. What is currently happening is something that is beyond their power, not PSD trying to hide it's mess by putting PS on a bad spot. Like the stuff with Socrates, the gold visas and BES all deserve their own effort posts cause there's some really crazy poo poo in that. BES managed to piss off Luxembourg and Switzerland market regulators, and almost every single federal agency in the US, all at the same time. With the gold visas Portugal either knowingly or unknowingly gave residency and asylum to a Chinese being hunted by the Chinese Communist Party which is just the last thing you want to rile up when you have your country being bought in volume by the CCP. Also that Chinese was being hunted by Interpol, so Portas couldn't even make up that this poor Chinese said the wrong thing about Taiwan. This is literally the kind of people the Portuguese gold visa scheme has attracted, folk considered too corrupt for loving China. While Socrates was basically game over for a man who was involved in so many corruption and fraud cases in the last 20 years, that it's easier to names the ones he isn't. The timing may be off, but I believe it's one of those cases of "When isn't the world/country at crisis?", but most important is that is jig is up for many a people. The crisis did more than just make the average Portuguese poorer, it put an end to a particular entrenched establishment and several practices by exposing the State weaknesses, and the fact that troika rules and new EU directives no longer allow for the kind of nonsense that the old politicians got away with. "Os dias das vacas gordas" are gone and will never come back. It's basically the end, and what were are witnessing is indeed, everything rotting and crumbling at the same time. Similar things are happening in Spain. Electronico6 fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Dec 18, 2014 |
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Dec 18, 2014 16:51
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/judge-orders-spanish-princess-to-face-tax-fraud-trial-with-husband/article22175311/ Well well, Princess Cristina finally on trial.
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Dec 22, 2014 22:50
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Xibanya posted:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/judge-orders-spanish-princess-to-face-tax-fraud-trial-with-husband/article22175311/ Urdangarín (king's son in law) facing 26,5 years in prison. Cristina facing 4 to 6 years.
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Dec 23, 2014 03:03
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Lamadrid posted:Urdangarín (king's son in law) facing 26,5 years in prison. You think that's bad? You should see what American royalty gets! We don't put rich people who steal money in prison unless they steal from other rich people! Given how Urdangarin was making fun of Cristina's boobs in his emails and other dumb poo poo, my guess is there's not a lot of public will to sic it to her hardcore.
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Dec 23, 2014 16:14
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Xibanya posted:You think that's bad? You should see what American royalty gets! We don't put rich people who steal money in prison unless they steal from other rich people! The old dirty secret seems to be Urdangarín dumped his old (and by the time hot as gently caress) girlfriend, cancelled their wedding and cut any communication with her family that saw him as almost a son. All to marry Christina who at the time was madly in love with him and chasing him through Barcelona. Then he made a seamless transition from the world of handball to the business establishment ending with a million euro a year position in telefonica that relocated him to DC. That dude hosed his way to the top.
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Dec 23, 2014 16:38
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I am going to write a little about Bankia which looks and feels like a massive cancerous tumour and a reflection of everything that is bad and corrupt about this country.So let's star from the beginning, I might play fast and loose with the rules. Let's travel back in time to the glorious 2001.España va bien.Aznar is glowing with a new complete majority in parlament basically allowing him to as he pleases in the country. Unemployment dramatically decreased in the 5 previous years going from 20% to 14-12%, privatizations filled the coffers of the country and the euro was coming. This would change completely the landscape of the spanish banking system forever. In 2001 the banking sector had a public system of lending and saving known as "cajas de ahorro".These were public entities therefore under control of elected official to a regional level completely shielded from the regular private banks.For example banks could be brought by cajas but not vice versa. When the 1 of january rolled out the Euro became the very first european currency .That lowered interest rates for every country that was part of it allowing countries to finance themselves with artificially low interest rates.The expectation was that German procedures would be accepted as the standard (lol) and other countries would become as serious as germany was. A second effect was the influx of German savings flowing through Frankfurt to the south of Europe.Finally ECB was lowering the interest rates due to the German Recession.This cheap money flooded the markets.Back then the mediterranean economy was expanding fast so this money was delicious and cheap so everybody was financing gigantic projects cheaply. This is the moment the property bubble begins to form.Cajas being regional banks controlled by regional politics were specifically sensible to large real state development..These projects brought money and jobs to their electors and friends. Places that should not be developed were sold as prime real state.Garbage sold at a price of gold.All financed by cajas with foreign money. This goes on for 6 more glorious years till the 2007 credit crisis that compounded with our own property bubble popping. Now cajas are filled with massive defaulting credits that cannot be unloaded, plenty of worthless real state and riddled with awful management.So one after another they start to crumble. Playing loose with the timeline centenary banking institutions with long traditions of taking care of their customers collapse overnight.Not after taking everything they can of their most vulnerable customers (pensioneers) selling them complex financial instruments . So now what? So now Bankia.You bundle up all the garbage of the system into one big place that would administrate whatever healthy parts are left and .... Now you have created a massive systemic risk inside an already fragile banking system riddled with massive amounts of risky credits, falling property prices, and rising unemployment. So that's it for now. hump day bitches! fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Dec 23, 2014 |
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Dec 23, 2014 17:24
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Lamadrid posted:The old dirty secret seems to be Urdangarín dumped his old (and by the time hot as gently caress) girlfriend, cancelled their wedding and cut any communication with her family that saw him as almost a son. Wait is this the Spanish politics thread or the Crusader Kings thread? Here's my Spanish crisis tale. I am not a huge expert in bank stuff since I was a dumb 17 - 23 year old when I lived in Spain, but I remember in 2007 one of my professors was bragging about having bought a bitchin' flat in town for hundreds of thousands of euros that turned out to be like 120 meters squared and without any outward-facing windows. And the value can only go up, up, up!!! His debt is now worth more than the flat but he can't do bankruptcy like he could in the states. Whoops. In 2008-2009 I was paying for my living expenses from my savings in dollars. Exchange rate was like 1.6 dollars to the Euro and I was living in Mad town. The conversion was murder. After I graduated college I was employed1 and at last a mileurista2! By 2012, I noticed a curious phenomenon. I would approach an ATM and attempt to withdraw money but the ATM would say they had no cash. I'd go to the next ATM down and that one would have no cash either. And so on. At that point most of my assets were in Euros and not dollars, but I eventually was unable to renew my residence, and after living as an  illegal immigrant for about five months I decided I would either have to enter a civil union with my lovely male roommate3 or I would have to leave, because being illegal made entering and leaving the country complicated4. I made the tough choice to leave my beloved city and beloved Spain, but then had to sort though the sticky issue of converting all my assets back to dollars. And the conversion rate at the time was 1.2 dollars to the Euro. Ain't life a bitch? Notes for guiris 1. I was officially an autonomo, but the company was dodging taxes, like the companies who illegally 1099 their employees (misclassify as contractors) in the states. They employed so many non EU people that they had an accountant on payroll whose job included doing our taxes for us. 2. When I was in Mad that was all my out-of-college friends could talk about "One day I will be a mileurista!" (That or "Soon I will start grad school!") A mileurista, for those of you following along at home, is someone who earns a gross wage of 1k euros per month. If you pause and think about that, by American standards that's a pittance. Especially for an expensive world-class city like Madrid. 3. pareja de hecho -- like a civil union -- some of my friends have done it to stay in Spain; you just have to show you've been living with the EU member for 2 years with utility bills or something, at least that's how it was when I left. They have probably made the requirements more strict since then. 4. At least two of my friends have been deported after being caught at the point of entry. (Lol the irony at a huge number of illegal Americans in a Spanish-speaking country.) One friend of mine who was illegal in Spain for like 2 years would always fly into France and then hike across the Pyrenees with his suitcase. He later discovered he was directly descended from Sephardic jews who were kicked out of Spain and apparently can get some kind of residency. Full circle, man. I went back to Spain in May of this year and at passport control they were eyeing my old entry and exit stamps, revealing my previous illegal-ness. They asked me about it, and without thinking I started trying to explain in Spanish. The guy immediately seized upon my fluency and started asking if I was here to work - amid my denials the guy started asking questions related to me possibly being a sex worker! Fortunately when I pointed out I was not travelling alone they asked my boyfriend, who was traveling with me, to step up and answer some questions too -- when my boyfriend revealed his ignorance of the Spanish language, they decided that I was an OK American tourist and not an evil prostitute out to steal tricks from hardworking Spaniards 
Xibanya fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Dec 23, 2014 |
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Dec 23, 2014 20:13
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I used to casually follow Spanish politics since I have a lot of family living there (entirely in Galicia), but I haven't had time over the past couple of years due to a new job. Now I'm curious - why has PSOE's support fallen off so badly despite PP's scandals, and why has the left rallied around Podemos instead? It seemed like Zapatero's government was fairly left-wing, but has the party shifted back towards the middle in the meantime?
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Jan 7, 2015 09:11
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surrender posted:I used to casually follow Spanish politics since I have a lot of family living there (entirely in Galicia), but I haven't had time over the past couple of years due to a new job. Now I'm curious - why has PSOE's support fallen off so badly despite PP's scandals, and why has the left rallied around Podemos instead? It seemed like Zapatero's government was fairly left-wing, but has the party shifted back towards the middle in the meantime? Well PSOE it's seen as a more friendly face to the same establishment that rules the country.On a policy level they betray any leftist thought they have the moment they sniff power as a general rule and Rubalcaba completely murdered any chance they had past elections. Before they had advantage of being the only mainstream leftist party left capable of facing PP in the elections.
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Jan 7, 2015 20:42
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surrender posted:I used to casually follow Spanish politics since I have a lot of family living there (entirely in Galicia), but I haven't had time over the past couple of years due to a new job. Now I'm curious - why has PSOE's support fallen off so badly despite PP's scandals, and why has the left rallied around Podemos instead? It seemed like Zapatero's government was fairly left-wing, but has the party shifted back towards the middle in the meantime? They put in place a pretty serious austerity program before they lost the elections.
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Jan 7, 2015 23:51
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Have some El Jueves: Rajoy: The crishish is over! Bystander: They're even scarier when they're happy.  Title: The PP commemorate assuming the government with an exposition on employment Permanent Contract Man: Wow! This is an original, you said? Woman: You heard me. (employment in Spain is typically by contract. Since the crisis employers have been really cagey about hiring people the way Americans think of hiring - that is, a person gets hired and they stay on, barring massive fuckup, basically indefinitely. Most employers just extend 6 month - 1 year contracts, trapping even employed people live in uncertainty.)
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Jan 13, 2015 01:05
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That's like temp work and we have a big problem with it in america.
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Jan 13, 2015 05:12
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Oh yeah, and related to DXH's effortpost about Little Nicky: Little Nicky refuses to testify in court! Nicky: I plead the fifth! Judge: You're not in a loving movie! A hilarious/depressing number of Spanish kids I knew in school were not aware of the finer differences between Spanish and American law (in part due to the influence of American movies and TV shows) so there are indeed Spaniards who would believe that the Bill of Rights apply to them.
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Jan 13, 2015 21:56
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Looks like Podemos has secured its lead for now.
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Jan 13, 2015 23:00
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What's that orange line that starts in 2012 and appears to be becoming the 4th largest party?
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Jan 14, 2015 00:05
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Orange Devil posted:What's that orange line that starts in 2012 and appears to be becoming the 4th largest party? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_%E2%80%93_Party_of_the_Citizenry "Citizens," a liberal center-left party that is against Catalan separatism.
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Jan 14, 2015 00:07
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Any reason the Greens haven't followed their Greek counterparts' lead and thrown in with Podemos?
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Jan 19, 2015 05:31
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Sheng-ji Yang posted:Looks like Podemos has secured its lead for now.  tercera ya 
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Jan 19, 2015 08:47
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Currently the Autonomous Government of the Azores is having a big cry about the US reducing it's active troops in the Lajes Air Base in the island of Terceira and it's economical impact on the Azores archipelago, and wants the government of Portugal to do something about it.(lol) "This isn't how we treat friends and allies" The Azores/Portugal should just grow a pair and sell it to China.
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Jan 19, 2015 17:48
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I love all this solidarity between Basque and Catalan nationalists on one side and the IRA on the other. I'd never heard of that before. In Northern Ireland there is one part of the population wanting a strong and permanent union with the UK and on the other side another part wanting the same with the Republic of Ireland. Statistically there is/was hardly anyone supporting (let alone fighting for) independence. The comparison between NI and Catalonia would be perfect if Catalan nationalists wanted to leave Spain...in order to be part of France. E: I don't know what the IRA/SF thought about all that. Probably just nodded, laughed and took whatever money/semtex was on offer.
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Jan 29, 2015 01:02
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Feb 9, 2015 15:42
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and that's just for last month, although I predict that Podemos' numbers are going to fluctuate a bit in the coming months depending on how well Syriza's plans pan out. On that note, it's interesting how Syriza is being portrayed in the Spanish media. I've heard some good, some bad, but it seems to me that a lot of folks are taking a "wait and see" approach when it comes to reporting Syriza. Does that mean that the Spanish media will give them a positive spin if things goes well? Probably not, but if Syriza begins to falter or they start about-facing on their campaign promises you bet your rear end that the talking heads on Spanish media will parrot that talking point until election day. I'm going to write up another effortpost this week, since I've neglected this thread for far too long. I think I'll just say gently caress it to the new law and keep posting up links. If I get a fine for several hundreds of thousands of Euros I'll make sure to take a picture and post it in this thread.
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Feb 9, 2015 16:25
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Cool and new exciting politics in Spain let's check out Portugal   If it wasn't for PDR and LIVRE, this could be a poll taken from January 2005. Also lol the Costa effect. "PS isn't PASOK!!! (We also ain't SYRIZA)"
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Feb 9, 2015 17:02
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I'm hardly knowledgeable about Spanish politics, but one of the newspapers over here (Chile) has a tie-in subscription to El País. For the most part it seemed like a respectable publication when compared to what passes as journalism over here, but It's kind of amazing to see how laughably biased the paper is towards the PSOE and against Podemos, particularly in comparison with our own media, which is by no extent of the imagination "fair and balanced", but has always gone to great lengths to never appear overtly partisan. EP, on the other hand, "PODEMOS??! DID YOU MEAN POPULIST SIREN SONG" "Latest polls show that PSOE has sunk to its historical lowest BUT HAVE YOU SEEN SÁNCHEZ's HOT MUG" And the columns are even better. "TSIPRAS IS A PAMPERED POUTY MANCHILD AND IGLESIAS IS THE SAME BUT WITH AN UGLY PONYTAIL"
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Feb 9, 2015 18:47
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Just wait til you see El Mundo.
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Feb 9, 2015 18:56
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I would post some of the more ridiculous Op-Eds from ABC and La Razon, the two biggest right-wing rags here in Spain, but all the really good ones are hidden behind a paywall, which I find funny because la mano invisible del mercado libre (the invisible hand of the free market) obviously demands that the consumer pay money for information and then be subjected to annoying ads anyway.
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Feb 9, 2015 20:20
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DXH posted:I would post some of the more ridiculous Op-Eds from ABC and La Razon, the two biggest right-wing rags here in Spain, but all the really good ones are hidden behind a paywall, which I find funny because la mano invisible del mercado libre (the invisible hand of the free market) obviously demands that the consumer pay money for information and then be subjected to annoying ads anyway. wh-wh-what happens when the marketplace of ideas picks people who are against the invisible hand of the free market, does that mean the invisible hand is punching itself 
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Feb 9, 2015 21:17
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Electronico6 posted:Cool and new exciting politics in Spain let's check out Portugal You mean the left splintering into a million movements each one competing with the next for the most retarded names (the current one, Juntos Podemos, takes the cake in my opinion) and throwing itself at each other's throats while felatting PS was an absolutely terrible idea that only served to weaken the left and empower the vilest party that was ever legalized in Portugal? Well i'll be damned But then again, we'll probably get a 50%+ abstention rate in this election, so it's not like whoever ends up ruling has any sort of democratic legitimacy. Meanwhile cops are entering black suburbs, shooting civilians at random, arresting and beating rappers just for fun while the media portraits it llike poor police officers were attacked by gungunhana himself.
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Feb 9, 2015 21:21
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Juntos Podemos has never been/will never be more than a cheap attempt by four or five dudes to try and grab some media attention by pretending they're Podemos. And with regards to abstention, well... maybe people would vote if they had any faith in the political process, but not with the parties we have.
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Feb 9, 2015 21:26
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To be fair, PCP has played a part in turning the Portuguese Left into the sinkhole it is, it's not just PS.
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Feb 9, 2015 21:46
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I'm not excusing PCP but they're the only ones who actually talk about PS like it really is instead of still pretending it's a leftist thing. That and in the last years CDU has proved to be one of the few who are capable of having any kind of administrative capacity.KoldPT posted:And with regards to abstention, well... maybe people would vote if they had any faith in the political process, but not with the parties we have. Blaming PCP and the Bloc for the errors of the center is just absurd.
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Feb 9, 2015 22:16
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Mans posted:I'm not excusing PCP but they're the only ones who actually talk about PS like it really is instead of still pretending it's a leftist thing. Pretty sure Bloco de Esquerda has been doing that for that last years and it cost them a major chunk of their electorate. A lot of people don't give a poo poo about this "True Left-Wing" nonsense that runs from PS to MRPP, but I think most people would welcome a party on the left that would play with PS, if only to avoid the disaster coalitions PS had to make over the last 40 years with PSD and CDS, pointless minority governments like Guterres, and reign in it's worst aspects like Socrates. Livre has good chance of that, now that it got the support of Oliveira and Drago who have more presence in Portuguese politics than Tavares, but it all seems too late. Our next government is most likely be some retarded PS/PSD poo poo. PCP does one thing, and it does very well, yet it's pretty clear the party is not and doesn't want to be a real solution or alternative to the ruling Centre parties. It's content being the 12% protest party and that's about it, but it's existence on the Portuguese Left has become firmly establishment by this point, it doesn't support or even abide the existence of movements outside of it's control, like Indignados e Que se Lixe a TROIKA, and it put an end to these movements when it sent back it's pet union CGTP back unto the streets, and since then a lot of the citizen protest in Portugal had it's wind taken out of it. The party had a face lift, but it's still the same stupid party that clings to positions taken 40 years ago, supports North Korea against American Imperialism, defends the memory of the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart, and complains about Nazis in the Ukraine on the parliament floor as if it were a Youtube comment section. Really PCP needs to let go all that Cunhal baggage and move on, they could a lot better as it stands it's so very frustrating.
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Feb 10, 2015 12:01
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